Love and Fear

The story of the Emperor Moth is one of my favorite stories and demonstrates the importance of trusting in your process.

The Emperor Moth is the most majestic species among all the moths. It has broad wings spanning out majestically when it flies. Before it can become a full-grown moth, it has to be a pupa in a cocoon. An interesting fact about the moth's cocoon is that the neck of the cocoon is very narrow.To become a moth, the pupa of the moth must squeeze its way out of the narrow neck.

One day a man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. He sat and watched the moth struggling to force the body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as possible, and it could go no more now. It just seemed to be stuck.

Being kind, the man decided to help the moth. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon, and the moth then emerged quickly. However, it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man expected that the wings would enlarge and expand to support the body, which would expand in time. But neither happened! The little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around, with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly and a few days later, it died.

The man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand that the struggle required for the moth to escape its restrictive cocoon through the tiny opening was nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the moth into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once the moth emerged. The moth’s freedom and flight could only come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of conflict, the well-intentioned man denied the emperor moth of health.

Author -Unknown-

When I feel afraid, I try to focus on the love available to me. I find this love in nature, my family and friends, pets, and doing things, like gardening, that I genuinely enjoy. I have found that where I carry love, fear cannot exist.

However, even worse than carrying fear is cutting ourselves off from our feelings. Like the moth, we must be willing to experience the discomfort of growth and trust in what we know love to be that the discomfort only makes us stronger on the other side.

eugenianascimento.com/blog/love-and-fear